


All Hallow's Eve

by 23Murasaki



Series: Everyone Lives! [10]
Category: Kuroshitsuji | Black Butler
Genre: AU, Agni is a nice person, Ciel is a little shit, Demons, Different words for demons, Gen, Halloween traditions, Ouija, Sebastian almost blows his cover, Wonky magic, demoning is difficult
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-06
Updated: 2014-02-06
Packaged: 2018-01-10 09:57:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1158257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/23Murasaki/pseuds/23Murasaki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a monster in Phantomhive Manor. Lizzie and Soma get a ouija board, and find more than anyone expected, while Sebastian encounters a familiar creature. Things proceed to go rather pear-shaped.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Hallow's Eve

Of course Lady Elizabeth wanted a Halloween party. She always wanted a party of some sort. Most of the time those demands could be relayed to the her mother or father, who would meet them gladly. This time, she had been clever and gone to Prince Soma about it first, and now both of them were talking nonstop about ghosts, hauntings, curses, and demons. The young master looked like he was going to cry.  
  
“Sebastian,” he growled, leaning against the door as though his pitiful weight would do more to keep those two out of his office than the perfectly functional latch ever could.  
  
“Yes, young master?” said the demon, not even bothering to disguise his amusement. His young master glared at him, the effect of which was lessened significantly by the garishly pink bow around his neck.  
  
“Scare some sense into them. That’s an order.” Oh, this was going to be fun.  
  
“Yes, my lord!” said the demon so vehemently that the shadows in the room got a little darker and the whole house grew colder. His young master frowned.  
  
“And stop with the shadowy nonsense otherwise. It’s stupid.” Oh well. He couldn’t win them all.  
  
\------  
  
Windows rattled in the darkness while the manor’s inhabitants tried to sleep. Locks came undone and doors creaked open, pushed by invisible hands. The air grew at times freezing cold and stiflingly hot. Voices whispered in the stairwell, speaking in incomprehensible languages and of ancient blasphemies. Strange shadows loomed in corners and even the most innocent of objects cast images of fangs and horror across the walls. The demon had really outdone himself.  
  
“Cieeeeeel! I think the mansion’s haunted!” wailed Prince Soma, tearing into the parlor followed by grasping and coiling tendrils of pure darkness.  
  
“You don’t say,” said the young master flatly, pretending to be fully engrossed in a game of checkers with Lady Elizabeth.  
  
“Haunted?!” shrieked the lady, jumping to her feet.  
  
“I heard chanting and then everything got cold and there were danaba e–” Agni quickly stepped in and swept the prince into his arms, murmuring consoling things while the prince sobbed in a foreign language about monsters.  
  
“We can’t let Ciel sleep in a haunted place! It’s too dangerous!” Lady Elizabeth declared, looking close to tears herself. “What if something tries to eat him?!” The demon tried and failed to suppress a snort of laughter. His young master, the lady, and Agni all glared at him almost at the same time, and he tried to salvage the situation.  
  
“Even if this manor was haunted, Lady Elizabeth, I am certain I would be capable of protecting my young master,” he said smoothly, laying a hand across his lapel.  
  
“Still, if there are monsters and ghosts...” Lady Elizabeth sniffled. “Mr. Sebastian’s just a butler, after all...”  
  
“Yes, but I am one hell of a butler,” said the demon firmly. Soma stopped whining in a foreign language for a moment.  
  
“D-don’t say things like that! You’ll call the rakshash here!” he wailed. Agni sighed heavily, deposited the prince in an arm chair, and marched over to the fireplace.  
  
“If something is haunted, the haunters can be cast out,” he said placidly as he traced a seal of security in the embers. The fire suddenly got a fair deal brighter. “Most of the time, they only mean to frighten, not to do harm. Isn’t that right, Sebastian?” The demon didn’t have a chance to answer, because Lady Elizabeth grabbed onto Agni’s arm.  
  
“D-does that mean we can talk to them? Ask them to go away?” She almost sounded excited.  
  
“Most likely, they will leave on their own, little lady,” said Agni, at this point sounding terribly like a tutor. “But if you wish to speak with them, you may certainly try. With the correct protection, of course.” Prince Soma perked up significantly.  
  
“That’s right, I keep forgetting you’re a Brahmin... you know about these things,” he said between sniffles. The young master grinned quite evilly.  
  
“That’s a wonderful idea, Lizzie,” he said. “Yes, let’s see if we can contact whatever it is that has been terrorizing you two.” The demon wondered if it would be against his contract to punch someone in the face.  
  
\-----  
  
At least none of the seals were the sort that prevented him from entering or leaving the room, and the one Agni had pinned to his chest was a simple protective measure. Nothing here could harm him, though it would probably do a fair bit of damage to an attacker with evil intent. Lady Elizabeth and Prince Soma had a ouija board, his young master was watching with poorly disguised amusement and somewhat better disguised interest, and Agni was fiddling with candles, because obviously what the room needed was more fire.  
  
“You in the darkness, listen and answer,” intoned Lady Elizabeth a little shakily. “I call for you to speak!”  
  
“That should work, I think,” said Prince Soma. “Now you ask a question, right?”  
  
“Right.” The girl tried to focus very hard. “Um... what is it you seek in this house?” The demon surreptitiously made the pointer move. It was harder than he thought.  
  
“I think it’s spelling out ‘food’,” said Prince Soma excitedly. “Hey, Agni, what do you feed a monster?”  
  
“That depends on the type of monster,” said Agni. That was true.  
  
“You should try the kitchen, then,” said Lady Elizabeth firmly. “Promise you won’t hurt Ciel– or anyone!”  
  
“That says ‘yes’, right? I’m glad!” Prince Soma let go of the pointer in relief. Lizzy bounced to her feet and hugged her cousin.  
  
“See! He promised, so everything will be fine!” she said with a giggle.  
  
“Wonderful,” muttered the young master in response. “Regardless, Sebastian would have protected me.”  
  
“Of course,” said the demon.  
  
“That is very good to hear, my friend,” said Agni, patting the demon on the shoulder cheerfully. Very suddenly, the pointer flew off of the ouija board and hit Lady Elizabeth in the head. She yelped. So did the young master. Agni looked startled. The demon placed the pointed back on the board, where it started moving again on its own. Prince Soma made a wordless noise and ducked behind his servant.  
  
‘H-E-L-L-O’  
  
“Who are you?” snapped the young master. “Tell me your name, and that’s an order!” The demon shook his head briefly. This was certainly not his doing.  
  
‘I-H-A-V-E-no-N-A-M-E’ For some reason Lady Elizabeth had managed to place herself between the young master and the board, as if to shield him with her arms and skirt.  
  
“Then what are you?”  
  
‘I-A-M-H-U-N-G-R-Y-A-N-D-I-C-A-N-S-E-E-Y-O-U-S-M-E-L-L-Y-O-U-F-E-E-L-T-H-I-S-H-O-U-S-E’  
  
“Begone,” snarled the demon, hands balled into fists at his side. “You are not welcome here.”  
  
‘I-D-I-D-N-O-T-T-H-I-N-K-Y-O-U-W-O-U-L-D-W-E-L-C-O-M-E-M-E’ It paused, then resumed. ‘B-U-T-I-H-A-V-E-F-O-U-N-D-T-H-I-S-P-L-A-C-E-I-C-A-N-F-I-G-H-T-Y-O-U’  
  
“And I will destroy you if you try. Begone!” He took a deep breath. “I shall not ask you thrice!”  
  
‘Y-O-U-W-A-N-T-T-O-F-A-C-E-M-E-N-O-W-B-E-F-O-R-E-Y-O-U-R-A-N-A-W-A-Y-W-I-T-H-F-E-A-R’  
  
“I do not fear you,” said the demon quietly. “It was never you I feared.”  
  
“Do you know this being?” asked Agni, looking legitimately curious.  
  
“I think I recognize him, yes,” replied the demon, who was much too angry to think about cover stories.  
  
“I see,” he said. “In that case... Mr. No-name, there are better ways to talk to people than through a board. Maybe you should show us your face?”  
  
‘Y-O-U-W-I-L-L-R-E-G-R-E-T-T-H-I-S-O-F-F-E-R-A-N-D-C-O-W-E-R-B-E-F-O-R-E-M-E’  
  
“But, can you be sure of this?” asked Agni, smiling politely at the board. He really was asking for it, but it was amusing to watch. “Either leave us be, or show your face properly, please.” The pointed shuddered, took flight again, and would have hit Agni between the eyes had he not caught it between two bandaged fingers.  
  
“W-what was that?” Lady Elizabeth stammered. “N-no one was moving it at all!”  
  
“Someone was. We just could not see him,” replied Agni, shoving another log into the fireplace. It was very nice and warm in the room, and bright enough to make all matters devilish and dark seem faraway and nonsensical. At least for a moment. The demon shook his head and came back to his senses.  
  
“Regardless, you seem to have sent him off, Agni.” It made sense that creatures like that would be incapable of dealing with him. After all, the demon had enough difficulties with it, and he was significantly more intelligent and capable of adapting.  
  
“Hm? Perhaps he will visit again in a different guise. If I correctly remember the story, once there was a–”  
  
And, of course, that was how they spent the next hour and a half. The story wasn’t done by then, of course, and even the young master put some emotion into insisting he finish the story another night. The demon tried to pretend to not be interested himself. Agni chuckled softly, redrawing the seal in the ashes in the fireplace.  
  
“Very well. I will perhaps tell all the tales of Lady Scheherazade...?”


End file.
